Today is Good Friday

22Apr

Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, commemorates the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. A day of strict fasting and abstinence, Catholics are allowed to eat only one complete meal and two smaller ones during the day without meat and no food in between.

In the Philippines, the day is commemorated with street processions, the Way of the Cross, the chanting of the Pasyon, and the staging of the Senakulo or Passion play. Church bells are not rung and Masses are not celebrated. In some communities, devotees engage in self-flagellation or crucifixion as expressions of penance.

After three o’clock in the afternoon, the faithful are urged to keep a very solemn and prayerful disposition until Easter Sunday. Noise and merriment is highly discouraged, while businesses close, and some radio and television stations close down. Other television networks show movies on the lives of Christ and the Saints or broadcast the day’s rites live from Catholic churches which include the reading of the Siete Palabrás, the recitation of the Stations of the Cross, and the Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion.